Amen. Like basketball- even NBA players miss. All of 'em do it. They don't make 100% of their shots just because they take high-probability shots, have the skills, and practice hard.
Shooting a bullet at something is always an unknown to some degree. That's the risk we take when we decide to go hunting. The important thing is that we do our homework, and then take our misses to heart, learn from them, and try not to repeat the same errors in the future.
Rick,
I think this is the point you're trying to make, in short. If we miss because we've made an error in the moment of the shot, or overlooked a variable, that's human. If we miss because we failed to prepare properly and do our homework ahead of time, ethically, we shouldn't have taken the shot.
Exactly. Thanks for making it seem too simple.
Maybe I'm weird, but I don't assign the same value to a trophy class big game animal and a piece of steel.
If you're shooting at steel with the wrong data and poor positional skills, it matters little if your miss would have meant a wounded big game animal.
That's what steel is for! Nobody goes from rookie to expert in one shot. Misses on steel tell you what to do in order to go from "newbie" to "capable of shooting game animals at distance". It just takes a lot of hits and a lot of misses to figure that out *grin*
